Fernando Semprun hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that 

Quote:


This isn't Chess Life or some hatchet-job magazine that has come out with the review.  The editors at NiC have final responsibility for what is printed, and if there is an article or review that is clearly off-mark, the editors should at least delay publishing the review until they've had a chance to check it with other experts.  The review wasn't a letter to the editor, it was a paid article.  As such, once a review that is clearly wrong-headed is published, the magazine owes to its readers to correct the error.   

Simply allowing the author to respond is not enough, experts on the Dragon such as those who have spoken up here should also write in to protest the negative review.   

good choice vigorito look forward to see your games happy hunting

Eddie ~

If that's too forward, please accept my apologies.  We Yanks are an informal lot, and having spent as much time with your Dragon book as I have, I feel like I've gotten to know you.

The Tiviakov review stunned me.  (Clearly I'm not the only one who has had that reaction!)  I'm a US National Master, and a full-time chess coach.  I''ve been playing the Dragon for 30-odd years, and have a full shelf of Dragon books.  Yours in one of the best.  Additionally, it is so lucid and so full of "chess wisdom" that it is a gold mine for a chess instructor.  Simply put, Play The Dragon is one of the best openings books I've ever seen.  Congratulations on a great job!

It's clear that Tiviakov does not understand the nature of a reprtoire book.  It also seems to me grossly improper to bash your analysis and refuse to offer any reasonable analysis to defend his position.  (One thing I've always liked about John Watson's reviews on TWIC is that when he is critical of an author's analysis, he supports his comments with specific variations.)  It is specious to suggest that Tiviakov should be exempt from such intellectual honesty on the grounds that he's a practicing Grandmaster and doesn't want to share his analysis.  That's an understandable position, but then he should probably have declined to review your book.

Are there analytical errors in Play The Dragon?  Undoubtedly, but as both you and Mikhail Golubev have pointed out, how could anyone (GM ST included) write a serious book on any opening, never mind on the Dragon, without making some mistakes in analysis and evaluation?  It simply goes with the turf.  That reality makes your conceptual/textual explinations all the more important .  The fundamental ideas and logic of the position are the solid rock on which a player can stand amid the swirling currents of this or that topical variation.  The Dragon lives and breathes fire despite its many obituary notices because it is based on sound logic and powerful fundamental ideas. It seems to me the greatest value of your book, at least for the vast majority of players who will study and benefit from it,  lies not in the specific moves (though they are important, of course) but in your deliniation of the positional logic and the fundamental ideas on which the Dragon is based.   

As for Tiviakov's tone, all I can say is that it is in such poor taste as to border on the obscene.  Again it is specious to suggest that there may be a "language problem".  If he isn't sufficiently fluent in English to handle the nuances of a perhaps critical, but still courteous, review, I wonder if he has sufficient fluency to judge a book written in English.  Especially one like yours, in which the words are perhaps its greatest asset.  As I noted earlier, that's not intended as a criticism of your analysis, but rather as praise for your conceptual discussions.  Such explinations may not be important to Tiviakov, but they sure are to the rest of us.  By the way, that is another reason that I question his selection as a reviewer of the book.  Clearly he doesn't understand what is and what is not useful/important to players with ELOs several hundred (or many hundred) points below his lofty plain.

On the subject of a response to the review, I'd agree that you need to, and that it needs to be specific (the "reprtoire book" issue, for example), low key and as respectful as possible.  (Though I'm not advocating your being a wimp, either!)  There's clearly been an outcry at Tivakov's commentary, and so it makes sense to let others fight the battle for you.

I don't yet have a copy of your Gruenfeld book, but I am looking forward to it.  Keep up the good work.

NM Pete Prochaska
President, Chess Odyssey

A couple of years ago he was photographing what he claimed to be a creature from another universe inside an Egyptian pyramid.  Recently, he was talking about seeing a flying saucer and provided a picture of his UFO and his analysis of what he thinks he saw in Chessbase:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2550

So, a crazy book review from him is no surprise.

Eddie - of course you'll write a good response (get Tracey to help if in any doubt over the tone!), while you know that it's an excellent book.

NiC YB 75 had some really good content, but I'm a little worried by their 'repertoire' flaws. They even published a strange letter criticising Joe's great KID book for not mentioning a line which wasn't one he'd selected for his black repertoire! The normally very sensible Glenn sensibly pointed out what a repertoire book was, but then seemed to get a little confused himself and carried away!
Then the book reviews (generally good as ever) pointed out that Kindermann's Exchange Lopez work could have been more useful for Black, alongside a photo of the cover which states that it's a repertoire book for white!

Tiviakov's review is one of the funniest/strangest  I've ever seen. Clearly he has no idea of the meaning of the word 'repertoire'.

It probably is a language issue, but not the way you mean. My guess is they asked Tiviakov to review the book since it is about the dragon. Tiviakov I suspect is as well versed in English as I am in French, which means that you can read it but with some effort. Therefore I think he immediately went into to moves (after all that is what he is hired for) without reading but diving into the variations and evaluations.
This is exactly the same way I read german chess books when I was 12 since I hadnt learned any german but it is very similar to dutch so you can understand it.

I finally received YB/75. It is pretty clear that Tiviakov did not understand that he reviews a repertoire book. Therefore he simply did not read the introduction in full. Unbelievable! As review, the article is totally inadequate, with all my respect to NiC. Sergei's opinions on specific lines are of course interesting, he does not provide lines to support his judgements.